jonny didmo

Fat fingered the mosfet mod and wiped my green machine's rx, so that was that. Pulled out a new (05) A channel biplane from stock, had my first full charge length flight in pretty close quarters. Impressed a fellow aa aviator who saw this & traded me even for his unopened A channel jet! He has another jet he's been flying and I have to say, it is a great airplane but hard to fly alongside, too hard to both keep my bipe in the air, and duck that jet when it comes around... On deck for me, mosfet modding my as yet unopened (05) B or C biplane. Will be the electronics for my first plane design. I think I've had enough practice in ruining my first rx, to handle soldering surface mount components now. Neurotex thanks for the good reporting throughout your canard trial, was interesting and encouraging. Still haven't settled on a design, was thinking aluminum can material but maybe too heavy. Was reading about thin wings working well for low speed flying and aluminum wings would be thin.

GTX SlotCar

Can you take a picture? I'd like to see if it's done the same as the BladeRunner or Winner X232.

[edit]
I just thought of something. I was assuming you got the PiccoZ (or whatever it is). The one made by the AA people. Maybe that's not what you got.

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

GTX, how do I keep the rotors from interfering with each other?

GTX SlotCar

You've got to balance and track the blades. There's stuff about it on page 89 of this thread. Balancing is easy enough. Just take the rotors off, slide a shaft (small wire or CF rod) through the hole in the hub and hold it vertical (like a ferris wheel), and place tape under the blades until it's balanced. When it's balanced, the rotor assembly won't have a heavy spot. Tracking them is harder, and more important if you want to avoid rotor collisions. You'll want to set each blade to about 22° pitch. You can try to curve or straighten each blade by hand, or heat the CF blade rods near the hub to soften them and add/remove pitch that way. Be careful, though. Too hot and the CF rod will just melt.
Going to fast forward or aft will cause the rotors to collide, but you should be able to hover and move slowly without it happening. It's too bad they didn't put a little more quality control in the rotors, even if it cost a bit more. These things will actually fly pretty good if you get them set up right, but getting there can be a real bear. You might even say it's Grizzly Once in a while you get lucky with a set of rotors and they're good out of the box, but that's not very often. There's another tip around page 89 about the hub adjustments (I think), and it's a good one.
If you're not getting enough forward/aft speed, cut the ring off the tail blade. It slows it down too much.

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Well I need to fiddle with some of the stops it appears. Putting the larger rotor on top and the smaller rotor on the bottom seems to give me the best lift and control so far. Tim

GTX SlotCar

They must have changed things. On all of mine, the rotors are the same size.

Flyer 1

My latest... the Global Interceptor.



Flyer

jonny didmo

nice plane flyer1!

Neurotex

Thanks, I jus wish'd I'd had better results. Hope everyone one at least
got something usefull out of it. The wing is now being made into a jet.

Sorry to hear about the FET mod. I fried a lipo yesterday by crossing the
wires taking it from a plane. Started getting hot & swelling but managed to
get the wires appart, which soldered themselves together, before it could burst.
Wow, those things pack the juice!

Yeah, that is a nice plane Flyer!
Where did you get it? What are some of the specs? Info- info!!!

MegaByte-2

Flyer 1

That is a cool looking design. You should consider submitting the plans to the AA Toolbox www.aatoolbox.no-ip.org .

Ferndale,
Was the info I provided helpful?

Tony
ARS Software & Innovative Solutions
http://www.falcon1.net/~ars/rcmodels.html

Ched

I have the best AA ever. It is stock out of the box. It flies great with the trim and tail flaps neutral. I can make left and right turns at full throttle with no downward spiral. (it climbs on a full charge) It will do more laps in my basement than any other AA I have flown. It has no delay in the remote control like some I have tried. I returned two AA because they flew like crap. Mine is a 06, green, yellow, channel b with the corner cut box. I tried changing the cg and moving the flaps but it didn't make it better. I would like to see a poll about how many people took their AA back to the store because it sucked. I think there are few as good as mine. Maybe I should sell it on e-bay for $75. lol

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Gtx, Here are the pic's. Sorry I didn't respond last night but I think we both hit send about the same time. And then I saw my post was the last post et.c. The guy I bought it from sent the smaller blades as well, they are not stock. The instructions claim 2 min flight time, I seem to be getting more that that.

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Megabyte, the info was helpful. I just need to put the order together. Thanks.

GTX SlotCar

I see. The green blades go to smaller version of your heli. I think it's called the mini dragonfly. Yes, you'll get quite a bit more than 2 minutes of flight on a charge.

novielo

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!

i just made the fet mod on a aa jet... and it works. i used 2 smt irlml6401 sot-23 fet and 2 1k ohm 1/4 watt resistors (yes you read right, 1/4 watt... i had nothing else in hand...). i still have to put everything back in the jet tough. i'll have to also find the right cg, 'cause i put a 230mah lipo in it, and it looks much larger then what was ment to be there...

meagbyte2, did you tried using 1/4 watt resistor in there? i used 2 30 ga braided wire going across the resistor and connected them to the fet once they where soldered... was sssoooooo easy first try on each 4 wire where the good ones. thanks alot for your help with that.

neurotex, thanks alot for your plane, can't wait to try it!!!

got a question a bout n-20 motor, i'm not sure it's what i have... the motor i have weight 10-15 grams and there size is: like an oval with two flats, 5/8" (15mm) flats, 3/4" (20mm) largest part of the "oval", about 1" (25mm) lenght. the shaft is very long, 1/2" (13mm). i have defender props laying around, does anybody ever tried to used 2 2-blades prop, put them in right angle to make a 4-blades prop?

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

I figured they went to a smaller version. Should this thing be so hard to trim? Or could it be that I keep changing blade configurations? And is it an inherent AA flyer trait to mix and match?[:@]. Tim

novielo

can anybody help me with the cg on a aa jet? the way i put back in electronic the cg is 1/8" in front of the prop opening. is it to tail heavy? i know i have to try it but i was just asking before i throw this thing. i just don't whant to wreck my lipo batt... it's on the top outside of the plane because i had not enaugh place inside...

GTX SlotCar

Both versions are current and both are on [link=http://www.hobbytron.com/RCElectricHelicopters.html]this page[/link]. I believe they sell the blades there, too. If you've got blades that are too messed up, it can be very hard to trim the heli.

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Novielo, my jets CG is even with the back of the prop cut out. I got my best flight out of moving the CG forward to the front of the prop cut out. From earlier discussions it needs to be a little nose heavy so that it can glide down. If you have the chopped one I remember, I don't know, but It seems like the CG won't work, less airfoil. That is all I can tell you. Tim

Can you remove the Lipo? If you remove the Lipo and replace it with clay you could work it until it glides. Read that earlier as well. Bonne Chance. Tim (hope I spelled that right)

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Gtx, I found that and damn near ordered the dark knight. Still pondering it. But what the heck are the other three channels?

Neurotex

Congrats!
Sounds like you have the N20's but a pic would sure help.

The jet didn't fly very well as a tractor set up (too tail heavy) but flew
great as a pusher with the Defender props. (minus the huge plastic nuts)

The CG was about an inch behind the cockpit. But since you have a heavier
battery I'm not sure where it is now. Try gliding it close to the ground in
thick grass. Some tail trimming may be needed too, as you can see I
bent it up pretty good back there.

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

stupid question, Should bigger, heavier planes glide well from a toss? I ask because I'm going to try to save a Titan. It won't glide, and I have yet to get it to fly. And Spinmaster has not been very helpful. I wonder why. Tim

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

another stupid question: Are there any books out there that will let me teach myself how to build these things, from electric to body to aero?

GTX SlotCar

2 channels for cyclic (forward/aft, left/right), 1 channel for rudder, one for throttle and 1 for collective pitch. The 6th channel is a spare. It's often called the landing gear channel, but if you add an expensive HH gyro, some of them are programmed through this channel.

Flying RC helis is not easy. If you want learn, I'd recommend getting a FP heli, not a CP. They'll take a beating without breaking parts, and when you do break them, they're cheap and fast to repair. Small CP helis are fragile, complex, and harder to learn on. You're better off learning on something like the Walkera Dragonfly 4 (DF4) or Esky Honeybee2 FP. If you want something easier to fly than that, you could start with an x-rotor heli like the Esky Lama3 or the larger Walkera 10. The key is to buy something that everyone else is flying. There will be more parts and help. LOL, and you'll need both.
[link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKsevh0WeWA]HERE's a video[/link] I made while testing our latest SuperPack LiPo. Looks easy, right?

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Thanks for the info gtx. I'm still parsing it.

I found the guy that was building the warthog from AA parts. It is now a four motor model. He is still working on it. He has a bunch of rubber band and hand tossed planes as well. fly-m.com. I think. Look it up under worthog, and you'll find it. I guess mis-spelling can be good. Tim